"Scores of school workers want gun training."
So says a front page headline in today's Columbus Dispatch. The article says that 450 school employees from around the state have applied for a free gun training program offered by the Buckeye Firearms Association. As a self-serving PR gesture in reaction to the Sandy Hook slaughter, the association is offering free classes to 24 "lucky" teachers. The general implication of the Dispatch article was "Wow! The demand really exceeds the supply. Gun training for teachers must be a very popular idea."
The Dispatch article is an example of Fox News-style yellow journalism at its worst.
It gives undeserved publicity and credibility to the Buckeye Firearms Association, a very small local PAC. (Dispatch-owned WBNS TV has also been giving undue attention to the BFA.) In truth, the BFA is just a tiny but noisy splinter group -- sort of club for Delaware County gun nuts/wing nuts. Shame on the Dispatch for giving them a platform, on the front page no less.
The 450 applicants for the gun class come from all over Ohio and include teachers, administrators, and others such as secretarys, nurses, janitors, etc. The Ohio Dept. of Education reports that there are currently 112,845 public school teachers in the state, and another 22,400 (approx.) private school teachers. Round it off and call it roughly 135,000 total teachers in Ohio. Using a very conservative guess of 10% additional non-teaching staff, we get an estimated total of 148,500 people employed in Ohio K-12 education. And just 450 of 'em want to bring a gun to work.
A better, more accurate headline would have been:
"Vast majority of school workers don't want gun training. Only three-tenths of one percent of employees apply for gun class."
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